BCCL

BCCL: Brussels Cultural City Lab

Brussels has a history of starting megalomaniac projects with the demolition of whole quarters. Ask any bruxellois, and he’ll tell you all about it.

this project accepts Brussels need for a landmark, a contemporary flagship building for the cultural sector. In the past, governments of Europe, federal justice, and economy have centralized all their respective functions in massive buildings, leading to the obliged move of whole quarters.
When creating a landmark for Brussels cultural life, one has to pay attention to this:

1. BCCL doensn’t centralize all cultural institutions.
Brussels is extremely multicultural, and thus also its cultural life. Centralizing/unifying this diversity would mean a great loss. n the other hand, there are so many cultural institutions in Brussels, that even long time inhabitants get lost in all cultural offerings. BCCL wants to create a crosspoint, where all different cultural actors can join, without losing their base ground. Crossing without centralizing.

2. BCCL doesn’t erase city quarters.
Instead it is a reconversion of the now severely underused “Muntgebouw”. This is situated at ‘De Brouckere’ and ‘Anspach’, one of the most important of Brussels, but also -architecturally- the most ignored crosspoint. By using the concrete structure as a stand for the massive but light facade that is hung over the original structure, the old and the new are combined. The mastodon feeling of the old building is annihilated by the white cloud-like structure. all new functions(rehearsing space, artist ateliers and residencies, bar, foyer) are hung up between the white facade and the internal old structure.

3. BCCL does create a landmark, without destroying. It does create a crosspoint, without centralizing and thus killing diversity.

© Wesley Degreef